Nobody's Home
by Original-Badass
Summary: AU: After four years of no communication with her family or friends, Quinn Fabray finally returns to Lima, Ohio. Secrets are revealed, old flames reunite, and rivalries are re-created. Can Quinn reconcile with her one true love in the midst of all the drama?
1. Chapter 1

**Chapter 1: They Never Tell You**

_Personal affection is a luxury you can have only after all your enemies are eliminated._

_Until then, everyone you love is hostage, sapping your courage and corrupting your judgment._

* * *

_In an hour the world will turn dark and still. Anyone who's ever camped in the remote wilderness knows what I'm talking about. There are no streetlights in the woods. No lamps, storefronts, or glowing laptop screens. These things are a comfort, even in a town as small as Lima, but I won't have any of them once the sun goes down._

_You might say, 'Yeah, but there are stars. Isn't that the same as a billion flashlights? And then there's the moon...' True, on a clear night with a full moon it's not as dark in the woods, but that's not the kind of night I'm about to suffer. I can already hear the thunder claps ten miles or so off in the distance. A storm is coming and clouds are gathering overhead. There will be no stars or moonlight tonight._

_I feel paranoid and unprotected so far away from home. The feeling is like I'm being followed by an army of zombies dead set on tracking me down. The really bad thing about camping in the deep of the woods? Unless you count a sleeping bag, there's no place to hide once the sun goes down. My fears can come at me from any direction they want._

_Looking up into the sky, I sense what's coming. By midnight it's going to start raining. In fact, from the smell of the air, I'd guess it's going to hail golf balls, the kind that will shred a pup tent and leave me trembling in my sleeping bag. I have no idea why Lieutenant Kane set up base out here. Then again, no one ever knew why he did half the things he did._

_My friend Emily once told me that I was his favorite but to not let it get to my head because my ego didn't need any boosting. She didn't have anything to worry about, because I don't have space in my head to dwell on how amazing I am. I'm preoccupied with more important things, like how I'm going to stay alive from one day to the next._

_There are times when people forget the courage they need to keep fighting and survive. But I think as long as we have something to believe in, to keep close in our hearts, courage will never truly leave us. We only have to reach deep in our hearts to find it. But I lost that opportunity 4 years ago..._

_I was lonely. I felt it deep and permanently, that this state of being on my own might never disappear. But I welcomed the loneliness, which had everything to do with being anonymous. It's never loneliness that nibbles away at a person's insides, but not having room inside themselves to be comfortably alone._

_It's so stupid because all I wanted was space and now that I have it, there's this part of me that's so achingly lonely I could die._

_When you shut people out of your life, they will eventually quit trying to be a part of it. So that's what I did. I let go. Letting go doesn't mean that you don't care about someone anymore. It's just realizing that the only person you really have control over is yourself._

_If people refuse to look at me in a new light and they can only see me for what I was, only see me for the mistakes I've made, if they don't realize that I am not my mistakes, then they have to go._

_Having someone wonder where you are when you don't come home at night is a very old human need. I haven't seen nor spoken to my family since the day I left Lima, Ohio four years ago. When I use the term family, I only speak of 3 people; 2 of which are in no relation to me whatsoever._

_Blood makes you related, but loyalty makes you family. That was my motto. Nicole Fabray, Santana Lopez, and Brittany Pierce were the only real family I had left – if I could still even call 'em that._

_When I was just a Sophomore in high school, I had gotten pregnant with Noah Puckerman's baby. I was feeling a little insecure after my breakup with Finn Hudson and allowed myself to consume every stupid compliment Puck threw at me that night. The same night I let him get me drunk off of wine coolers, and the same night I carelessly lost my virginity to a boy I had absolutely no feelings for._

_It was an accident. I was being selfish and weak. But it wasn't like I had did it on purpose, and I most certainly wouldn't have done it if I had known of the repercussions I'd face later on down the line._

_Weeks had passed by after I found out that I was pregnant and I still hadn't told my parents – although I knew I'd have to tell them soon because my stomach would only stay flat for so long before I started to show._

_My family was a conservative, overly religious, Christian-based one. So the night I decided to tell them, I knew the outcome was going to be disastrous. And I was completely right._

_My father, Russell Fabray, slapped me across the face the moment the word pregnant came tumbling from my lips. I flinched, but I wasn't surprised. I had been used to it by then. After the initial pain wore off, he proceeded to belittle me; like he always did. He told me how disgusting I was and how I had tarnished the Fabray name. He said he wanted nothing to do with scum of the Earth as such as myself._

_The words were meaningless to me. I had heard far better insults from him in the past but I didn't dare tell him that. And although the words were meaningless, they still hurt. Who wouldn't be hurt hearing those words coming from their own father's mouth? _

_But what hurt me even more, more than my father rendering me worthless, was watching my mother sit rigidly in her ridiculously expensive dining room chair, doing nothing to stop the spew of insults her husband hurled my way. That hurt so much more._

_One mistake had changed my entire life; and my entire life was defined by that one mistake._

_They disowned me and kicked me out of the house that same night without a second look – leaving their youngest daughter pregnant and homeless. _

_I found myself going to the only place I could that night. Noah Puckerman's house. His mother wasn't too happy about the fact that his knocked up non-girlfriend would be living with them for the remainder of the pregnancy, but she took me in regardless and I was utterly thankful. When Puck came into the guest room the next morning with two duffel bags full of clothes I was sure I had left at home, I knew he'd always have a guaranteed spot in my heart._

_Shortly after I had my beautiful baby girl, who Puck had named Beth, we gave her up for adoption to Shelby Cochran. At first we were reluctant, the thought of giving her up had pained us both, but we also knew that we were far too young to care for a baby on our own. And even if we did keep her, we wouldn't have had the proper income to feed and clothe her, so she was better off with Shelby anyway. _

_Following Beth's birth, I decided to take my older sister up on her offer and moved into an apartment with her. After about a week of living with Puck, I acquired the courage I needed and finally called her. I didn't know why I was so scared, I think now that maybe it was because I was afraid of her judgment, even though I knew she was nothing like our parents. Nicole and I had always been close, so I blamed them kicking me out for my initial hesitance. _

_When she answered the phone, the first thing she asked was, "Are you okay?" I'll never know how she knew it was me, because surely she didn't have Puck's mom's number, but I was just glad she knew. Apparently Russell had told her about the pregnancy and said that I decided to leave home because I was too embarrassed. Leave it to him to fabricate a story and make me look like the bad guy while he pretended to be some forgiving Saint who did everything by the Bible. _

_Thankfully, after living with him for most of her life and seeing him for who he truly was, she didn't believe any of it. She asked me if we could meet up at Breadstix and that's where I found myself at 6'oclock the next day. I explained everything to her and she listened with undivided attention. It was then that she offered for me to stay with her, but I turned her down for the time being because I had already promised Puck that I would stay with him until the baby was born. She understood and she accepted my decision, but she told me that her door would always be open._

_When I finally moved in, it was like…like a dream come true. I was living with my awesome older sister without any parental guidance, and it wasn't a fantasy. She welcomed my mistakes and embraced my flaws. We went shopping and out to eat, doing spontaneous things when our schedules didn't clash. We even had impromptu movie nights whenever I wasn't spending my weekends with Santana and Brittany or she wasn't hanging out with whatever boyfriend she had at the time. _

_Over the course of the two years I spent living with her, I had learned a lot of valuable things from Nicole. Despite her being six years older than I was, she could relate to a lot of the things I was going through at the time. The pressures of popularity, fake friends, and heartbreak. The heartbreak I never thought I would've received, from a girl I bullied through Sophomore year. _

_Turns out, things don't always go as planned. After a lot of analyzing and backtracking, I signed up to join the Marines, a month after my 18__th__ birthday and a week before Senior graduation. I filled out all of the necessary paperwork and forms, and was told that I'd be flew out to the Recruit Training Depot in Parris Island, South Carolina to start my basic training exactly a week after graduation._

_I didn't tell Nicole about my decision until the night before I was due to leave. We yelled and screamed at each other until our voices were raw and our throats dry. I didn't stop her when she sobbed while hitting me in my chest, begging me to stay. I didn't stop her when she said that if I left she'd never talk to me again. And I didn't stop her when she cried herself to sleep in my arms._

_The morning of my departure, I left two white envelopes on the kitchen table; one addressed to Nicole and one addressed to Santana and Brittany. I was too much of a coward to wake her up and inform her of my leaving properly. Because they never tell you goodbyes are like daggers to the soul in the military._

_I'm taken away from my thoughts when I hear a scream in the distance. I grab the M-16 beside me and scramble out of my tent, kicking off the sleeping bag that was still wrapped around one of my boots. With my gun held tightly between both hands, I see Lieutenant Kane also exit his tent, but it seems that I'm the only one to notice as everyone else is too busy staring into the darkened woods._

_I do a quick head-count and notice that there's someone missing. Looking at the faces of everyone present, my throat constricts when I realize who's gone. "Lieutenant, where is Private Palmer?" I ask, my right hand tightening around my gun so hard that my knuckles colored a pale white, paler than usual. _

_He turns his head and looks to me, his gaze traveling from my boots and stopping at my hands. He knows what I'm ready to do. And though he respects it, he also discourages it. "Stand down, Corporal."_

_I had no time to think of a response because as soon as I heard the second scream, I made a beeline through the woods. Hearing two sets of running footsteps behind me, I know that I'm not alone._

Quinn jerked awake with a gasp and groaned until her eyes finally adjusted to the bright sunlight shining through the rounded square window. Glancing to her left, she noticed that the sloppy fat guy seated next to her was still asleep and slobbering like a bull-dog. She grimaced and turned back around, her train of thought vanishing completely as she took a look at the Lima Allen County Airport.

After four years, she was finally home.

* * *

**Author's Note: **This story is completely AU.

Quinn and Puck did have Beth, but she never lied about who the father was, and at the time of the incident she and Finn weren't together. She never dated Sam, she never got into an accident, and she never dyed her hair pink or anything around that time. She also stopped bullying Rachel toward the end of sophomore year, so it only went on for about a couple of months. Everything else I think pretty much has happened.

Also, Rachel and Quinn's backstory will be told somewhere in the 5th or 6th chapter, but Rachel will be introduced in the 3rd or 4th chapter. This is Faberry endgame, though there will be bits of Quinntana.

P.s. I posted this chapter a while back but I wasn't happy with it at the time so I took it down. I've redone it and now it's here.

I will update the rest of my stories this week. I did not forget people.


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2: Scarred**

_There is something beautiful about all scars of whatever nature. A scar means the hurt is over, the wound is closed and healed, done with._

* * *

Quinn thought that after going to the dealer ship and renting a car for her stay, she'd be over her nerves. She couldn't have been more wrong. She didn't know what to expect when she arrived home. The word sounded foreign to her even inside her head. She wondered if she could even still call the place a home considering the fact that Nicole was now living with their mother.

With the help of Andrew, one of the guys she knew over in the communication field, she was able to find her sister's current residence. Imagine her surprise when she saw the address of the house she had been practically banned from when she was sixteen and pregnant. She didn't know what make of the situation, because now, she honestly didn't know where her home was or if she even had one for that matter.

That's why she was sitting in the driver's seat of a rental car that was parked in front of the nearest Super-Market. She claimed to just have wanted a juice but she knew in the back of her mind that it was just another reason for her to stall. She couldn't even begin to fathom why Nicole would want to move back in with their mom. She hadn't seen Russell's name listed anywhere when she searched for the address, so she assumed he didn't live there anymore. She figured that her parents had either gotten a divorce or Russell had died. She didn't care enough to find out which one it was.

And if she was being totally honest, she kind of felt a little betrayed by Nicole. She was the only person to ever truly understand what Quinn went through as a teen, having been familiarized with Russell's insults and his impromptu beatings herself. But Quinn felt hypocritical thinking that she had the right to feel betrayal. She left the people who loved her most to fulfill her own selfish needs; killing peoples' family members in the midst of it all.

She felt sick even thinking about it. She was a monster, a fucking killing machine. And the funny part about it was that she got paid to do it! But no, it wasn't funny. Not at all, not to Quinn. People died at her expense and she couldn't do a thing about it. On those occasions when she had killed in the dark, she later needed to see her victims' faces because, in some unlit corner of her heart, she half expected to find her own face looking up at her, ice-white and dead-eyed. "Deep down," the dream-victim had said, "You know that you're already dead yourself, burnt out inside. You realize that you have far more in common with your victims after you've killed them than before."

When she was little, she was out riding her brand-new blue bicycle when she decided to see how far she could keep going without looking back even once. She could feel with her back how her neighborhood was receding, further and further away…but she kept pedaling with all her might, her mind almost going blank. All she could hear was the sound of her own heart, thumping wildly in her ears. Even now, she remembers it sometimes. What exactly was she trying to do that day? What was it that she wanted to prove?

It was no use. Her mind just kept fogging over. She had this irritating sound stuck in the back of her head. What was it? The sound…she knew what it was. It was…the sound of emptiness.

Sighing, she sat back in leathered car seat, instead, focusing on the lacy snowflakes that fell slowly from somewhere up above. The sun was hidden behind a mass of gray clouds, creating a mood too gloomy even for the devil himself. The commuters of Lima looked as if they were all under a great depression, and for some reason Quinn felt that she was the cause of it all.

She thought back to when she was little and how she used to play in the snow with Nicole and Russell around Christmas time, trying to make snowmen that ended up resembling lopsided balls of packed flurry. She would cry whenever she realized that they looked nothing like Frosty the Snowman and Russell would reassure her that they had all winter long to try again. It usually got her to stop but he'd always bribe her with extra marshmallows in her hot chocolate for good measure.

That's when her life was simple. Now it was a big jumbled mess of what ifs and regrets.

Breaking itself from her reverie, she reached for the door handle and stepped out into the cold. She was still dressed in her fatigues and boots, the hat on her head doing nothing to stop the wind from beating against her face. She didn't care, she was used to drastic weather changes.

Walking inside the market, she noticed that the store itself really hadn't changed much except for the cheap Christmas decorations strewn about and the foam Snowman standing at the entrance. She held back a small smile when the sound of corny holiday music reached her ears. She could think back to a time when she would've been practically dying to get whatever is was that she came for and leave right after, but it was refreshing being around a different set of people she didn't have to see on the daily. It's exactly how she imagined it would feel like.

The four years she'd been gone she only left her station for six occasions, not including the times her mates would drag her out to the local bar in the middle of the night because technically, they were still on base. So the few times she did leave, she realized that going out in public dressed in a green military uniform usually attracted lots of stares. Well, she liked to think it was the uniform…maybe it was the scar on her face. She didn't know, nor did she care. All she knew was that it made her incredibly uncomfortable. And it wasn't even a recent thing…she never liked people staring at her. It was unsettling. She sometimes thought that if people stared long enough they'd be able to see who she really was.

A killer.

And to think people actually thanked her for serving their country. She didn't blame them though, they didn't know any better. But she still didn't understand why the government was so adamant on sending troops out to foreign countries, only to kill or get killed. Fighting for peace was like screwing for virginity. It didn't make any sense.

She was too busy mulling over her thoughts to notice the woman in front of her, only glancing up when she bumped into her back. When she turned around, Quinn was stunned. She tried to keep her face impassive. If she let her resistance fall, if she let the woman see the depth of her panic, the little reason she had left would surely desert her.

"Quinn?" the raven-haired woman spoke so softly, like she couldn't believe what she was seeing. She took a few cautious steps toward the blonde soldier before wrapping her arms around her.

Quinn stiffened at first, it was an impulsive move and she hadn't realized what she did until a soft sob was let out against her neck. She wasn't a threat. She was okay. Almost instinctively she wrapped her arms around the woman. At least she was important to someone.

Quinn's tears started without a sound or a movement. "I'm so sorry." she croaked with weary resignation.

Mrs. Lopez wrapped her arms around the girl even tighter. "Oh baby, you have nothing to apologize for."

She just wanted to feel important to someone.

* * *

**Author's Note: **This chapter is incredibly short, I know, I'm an asshole. I just wanted to give you guys a bit of a filler because I need to get to work on my other stories ASAP because I'm running behind. The next chapter will be longer I promise, and so will the ones after that. Chapter three is next, but chapter four will be in Santana's POV. It is going to be the only chapter in someone else's POV besides Quinn. Rachel will also be introduced in chapter four.

Anyways…I hope you enjoyed!

**Response to Guest:** Because apparently writing Quinntana means they have to be in a relationship? (Note my sarcasm.) When I said bits of Quinntana, I meant a friendship not a relationship. And I'm not being bitchy, I'm just a naturally blunt person. I'm actually considered really nice…by people that I like.


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